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I have an opinion on the iconics in general. I don't care about them. This is a bad thing if you're a publisher. You know who I care about? Elminster, Drizzt, Alias and Dragonbait, Tenser, Bigby, Mordenkainen, Tasha, and so on.
If you want to have iconic characters in your product's artwork, give people a reason to care about them beyond "there's that hot barbarian chick again." Make them important to the game. Mialee was supposed to be an iconic wizard, so why was there never a spell called "Mialee's Inspiration" or some such. Why wasn't one of the tactical feats called "Redgar's Gambit?" Why were supposed to care about these characters? the mini-replays? Maybe if the characters were stars of a replay series that was printed every month in Dragon, then i would start to care about them.
But seeing the same characters again and again doesn't make me feel any particular fondness for them. Of course, this can be a double-edged sword, too... people hate Drizzt as much as they love him.
Regdar: white (most often depicted unambiguously so, otehr than Lockwood's initial work).
I have no clue, the PHB and scourge of worlds both point to black or at least bi racial, but the original 3e Stand up was white.
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Alhandra: White.
Maybe, but I still think she looks more hispanic then white.
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Hennet: White.
White, really?
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Naull: who? (Googles around) Oh, her. Does she even count? I mean, yeah, but she's not really an iconic, is she?
Also not white, and yes she was technically an Iconic
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Last edited by beepeearr; 8th July 2008 at 11:30 PM..
Yeah, a genuine middle ages setting wouldn't have all of this "upward mobility" nonsense where a humble peasant can, a few hundred thousand experience points later, become some sort of cross between landed gentry, culture hero and rock star. The very level system that proclaims that anybody can become a world-shaker with enough experience points kind of gives the lie to a genuine Middle Ages Europe dynamic. It's very modern First World in nature.
The whole wish-fulfillment factor of starting out a peasant and ending up a warrior-king is much more fairy tale than historical fantasy. And fairy tales are pretty dang universal.
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For me, the real problem with the iconics was that they were, frankly, kinda lame. Almost none of them had any personality and attitude that made them interesting or distinctive.
Why was Regdar the default fighter? Well his armor and equipment was at least interesting to draw. Tordek was just an uninteresting character in the extreme.
Now in the PSAs, he's fantastic (see: D&D Debates: Elves Versus Dwarves).
Oh, and In Before the Lock!
--Steve
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I play 4E, and it's every bit as much Dungeons and Dragons as any other edition, including the one(s) you play. No more, and no less.
How is racism involving Monte still coming up? It has NOTHING TO DO with racism.
I refer again to my comment of "Some people have too much free time on their hands."
Marketing tried to be snide pricks towards the designers and artists. The artists decided to be snide pricks back. That's how jobs work.
__________________ Psionics are too sci-fi, not like the traditional method of spell casting that has existed only in D&D, involves research, laboratory work, and formulas, and was cribbed directly from a series of science fiction novels. I mean, come on, calling forth the power to alter the world from your own center of will? That's not magical in the slightest! Not at all like my wizard's spell "Telepathy!"
Then the idea of iconic characters is a poor idea. "Here are some bland, generic characters. You'll be seeing them all the time, but they'll never be doing anything interesting."
There's a reason Star Trek was about Captain Kirk and Spock and Dr McCoy et al. and not about Ensign Ricky. Star Wars is about Luke and Han and Leia and Lando, not Bantha Handler B. So why should the iconic characters in D&D be bland, uninteresting background characters? Why not use the characters people actually care about to sell products?
She's the only black iconic, but what about Regdar, Alhandra, Hennet, and Naull?
Jozan's the only white human, except maybe Kerwyn (I can't tell with him).
Regdar was designed as mixed-race by Todd Lockwood but more often than not painted as white by other artists.
Alhandra is white in the Player's Handbook - she might look Spanish or Italian with her dark eyes and hair, but she's still entirely European. Hennet is white in the Player's Handbook - the novel cover upthread makes him look pretty different from his original portrayal, and other artwork hews closer to the original. Naull has some Asian features, but she has extremely pale skin. Kerwyn, again, looks Mediterranean French or Italian, but still completely European.
You just don't see people looking like this in most D&D products, and I think that's a shame:
(Vietnamese)
(Swahili)
(Maya)
(Inuit)
(Austronesian)
__________________ Christopher Adams - Sydney, Australia
Religion must remain an outlet for people who say to themselves, "I am not the kind of person I want to be." It must never sink into an assemblage of the self-satisfied.
This is the picture from the PHB, if you'll look closely at the eyes and face you can tell it's the same picture as from the novel cover, but with the shading a bit lighter. And by the way neither Italians or Spanish started off with dark hair and darker complexion, it wasn't until after the Moors (arabic) invaded southern Europe and occupied and interbred with the natives that they took on those features. Before that they were pale haired and mostly fair skinned. And hispanics by the way are nothing more then Native American (be it meso, or south american) mixed with european (ie spanish) stock in the first place. So either way, regardless of whether they were designed to look Hispanic or Mediteranean they wouldn't be entirely european in either case.
And by the way Asians can have pale skin, it doesn't make them white. I think they made her pale because of the whole pierced goth look she had going on, I doubt it was to make her look more white.
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This is the picture from the PHB, if you'll look closely at the eyes and face you can tell it's the same picture as from the novel cover, but with the shading a bit lighter.
The face of Hennet on the novel cover has been redrawn. In the Player's Handbook he's looking at the viewer, on the novel he's looking at the magic in his hand, and his face has been redrawn to darken his skin and make him look more Asian.
In the original, he doesn't look particularly anything, but his skin is quite light.
I'm aware of the historical reasons why various southern European cultures look darker than northern Europeans, but the point is the impression of the modern viewer, and to a modern viewer, Italians/Spanish/Mediterranean French are known for dark hair and eyes - and they're still considered "white" or "European" in ethnicity.
When people say they'd like to see more non-white people in D&D illustrations, they don't just mean "non-Nordic". They mean "people that don't look like white Americans/Britons/Australians/whatever", and white Westerners are descended from people all over Europe - Scandinavia, Germany, the Mediterranean, the British Isles.
__________________ Christopher Adams - Sydney, Australia
Religion must remain an outlet for people who say to themselves, "I am not the kind of person I want to be." It must never sink into an assemblage of the self-satisfied.
I think you ahve a seriously deluded idea of the thoughts of most gamers. It would have seriously hurt sales. Tordek wouldn't have.
Really, you think so? Really, the most they'd do is ignore her like some people ignore Regdar and look at the other iconics. The vast majority wouldn't go "Oh, my God! This black chick appears with some frequency! I won't be playing this game anymore." Normal people don't think like that.
No, Tordek wouldn't have. But he'd probably have the loyal fanbase like us grumbling "stereotypical dwarf fighters everywhere." While Ember most certainly wouldn't have people complaining about the frequent use of black woman monks, due to the fact that there is nothing frequent about them.
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Most hispanics I know who play D&D where thrilled by Alhandra and Kerwyn, they didn't see them as being europeans, but as Hispanics. You say you want racial diversity in the art, but then say it isn't diverse enough, because the character still appears to of european descent. All true hispanics are of european descent, those who are not, are not hispanic, but from Native american stock instead. And there are a lot more Hispanics who play D&D then Mayans by the way.
__________________ Gaming group looking to add a few additional players in the Fort Worth TX. If interested email billyandstacey@sbcglobal.net for further information.
It seems to me that WotC tried to get people to care about the characters, thus the novels and the CGI movie (which was actually pretty good, a lot of fun to watch all possible endings). They were obviously not as successful at this as they would have liked... probably because the setting was so vague. The only thing that connected the stories was the presence of the characters, who would cameo in the other iconics' novels.
Having said that, I have to say I kinda liked Regdar, meaning how he was portrayed in the novels and movie -- whatever his true ethnicity may be
Sure, Seoni's got a nice rack, but who are these other schmoes? For me, at least, not only are the iconics completely irrelevant, it's getting to the point that it could be seen that we're getting them shoved down our throats (the aforementioned prominent ruining of covers along with two wasted pages of - again, irrelevant - stats of these nobodies in the book itself).
Yeah, because nobody on the Paizo forums went bananas over Seelah, the black female paladin with the tear-inducing backstory. And the GNOME druid? Completely not playing to the third edition crowd.
__________________ All role playing advice is given without knowledge of you and your group. Only you and your group knows what is fun for you. What you are doing is not badwrongfun. My advice is offered based on what I think might be fun for you to try.
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Also, even though you also have a white, male, human fighter as the "first" iconic, and he is perhaps the least interesting or memorable of them, he at least has the merit of not having a ridiculous chin-beard
Not according to a number of women on Paizo's boards. They think he's hot, with those doe eyes and manly scars.
Oh, how I hates him!
__________________ All role playing advice is given without knowledge of you and your group. Only you and your group knows what is fun for you. What you are doing is not badwrongfun. My advice is offered based on what I think might be fun for you to try.
"Art is the demonstration that the ordinary is extraordinary." - Amedee Ozenfant, Foundations of Modern Art
"I already have a place where I can get little recognition for my accomplishments, advance at a very slow pace, and have to work hard to eke out minimum rewards for my efforts. It's called work." - toberane.
He doesn't look Asian in the Player's Handbook, for whatever reason. Maybe that's why they had his face redrawn for the novel cover! But the fact remains.
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Most hispanics I know who play D&D where thrilled by Alhandra and Kerwyn, they didn't see them as being europeans, but as Hispanics.
That's great, but, you know, most Hispanic people I've ever met or seen on TV were a lot browner-skinned than the could-easily-pass-for-Spanish-or-Italian iconics. So, I will definitely concede that you can read Alhandra and Kerwyn as Hispanic, but you can also read them as just European, and I don't think the ambiguity is really a good sign.
Hell, we're arguing about how to interpret the illustrations - how could it not be better to have unambiguously non-Caucasian characters in the artwork? If Hennet in the Player's Handbook looked like the novel cover, or the sketch you posted there, instead of the whitewashed version actually printed, I think everyone* would be a lot happier.
Ember is unambiguous: no-one argues about her ethnicity. I'm just saying I'd like to have seen these arguably Asian and Hispanic iconic characters painted as obviously Asian or Hispanic. That's all.
* Except racists and other jerks who don't want Asian-looking people in their D&D books.
__________________ Christopher Adams - Sydney, Australia
Religion must remain an outlet for people who say to themselves, "I am not the kind of person I want to be." It must never sink into an assemblage of the self-satisfied.
What this is, however, is Cook explaining that the marketing team forced the creative team to make the lead iconic a white male human, because they have this stupid idea that white males will be appealed by him more. Which seems silly to me, this is a roleplaying game.
It's funny to me, but to me I read the creative team tried to go around the marketing team and do marketing the creative team way. And then the marketing team took back what was there job.
Art and covers are there to grab the attention of the guy walking by. It is mainly a marketing tool.
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